Cannot Live Without It!!! My Ode To Sweet Iced Tea

As I begin to write, I realize that I am walking into some very contentious territory. Love of iced tea, in many circles, is as close to beverage
based blasphemy as one can get. Coffee drinkers will cry out in rage. My English friends will see the word "iced" before their beloved word "tea"
and have a full-on emotional breakdown. Gamers will scream "MOUNTAIN DEW" with all of the zeal of a Viking warcry. And my friends in the North East
will try to convert me into loving iced coffee instead.

My reply to all of those sentiments: I will not be swayed. It will be sweet iced tea or it will be damned by me!

As a transplant to the Southeastern US I have to admit that I was not always an avid drinker ( read addict ) of sweetened iced tea. Or tea in any form
for that matter. In truth, I grew up poor and Kool Aid and those little plastic drink tubs with foil tops - the ones that taste like water with added
sugar and nothing else? - were my drinks of choice as a child. Mainly because they were all I had access to. We had the occassional
soda/pop/Coke/insert your colloquialism for a carbonated beverage here - but those were few and far between.

As I came of age, that lack of carbonated beverages led to a few years of my being an ardent advocate of Pepsi cola. This is a taste that has stuck
with me throughout life - as the meme goes, I don't always drink carbonated beverages. But when I do, it's always a Pepsi product.

All things being equal, however, given the choice, time and time again I will opt to sate my thirst with sweetened iced tea. Sweetened iced tea made
the right way - with enough sugar in it to give the neighbors diabetes simply from being in proximity to it. Tea so sweet that you have to
drink water afterward just to reopen the sugar closed throat the tea left you with. Tea so sweet that every time you make a pitcher, Dixie Crystals
stock prices go up and they send a "thank you" card.

REAL Southern tea.

My love for this elixer of the Gods is so extreme that my greatest fear is that the afterlife is filled with Starbucks and nowhere that serves a
decent glass of sweet tea. Or even that there is a mandate that the tea must be served with a lemon wedge.

Lemon wedges are blasphemy! If they touch the glass containing my beloved beverage, that entire glass is tainted and wasted. Why try to "nature up"
something that is already filled with natural goodness, and unnaturally dangerous levels of sucrose? It makes no sense to me at all.

My addiction to this beverage is so dominant and powerful that I once had an ex-girlfriend berate me for having a drinking problem. She was not
referring to alcohol - she was talking about the fact that I always have, at hand, a one gallon glass of tea by my side. ALWAYS. When one drinks
enough tea to spur an intervention? One is doing it right!

Am I alone in my love for my beverage of choice ATS? I am the only one so picky and deadset on a particular method of thirst quenching that only one
beverage alone will do? If not, do any others share my love of good ole' sweetened iced tea? Or am I surrounded ( as usual ) by a mob of coffee
fanatics who will declare me heretic for not drinking their favorite beverage?

As for my Britt friends who'll pop in with words like "Hot" and "Earl Grey"... it's not going to work!

Sweetened iced tea made the right way - with enough sugar in it to give the neighbors diabetes simply from being in proximity to it. Tea so
sweet that you have to drink water afterward just to reopen the sugar closed throat the tea left you with. Tea so sweet that every time you make a
pitcher, Dixie Crystals stock prices go up and they send a "thank you" card.

REAL Southern tea.

LMAO....

Can I get a 'Hell Yeah'? ..............HELL YEAH!!

Um, I love good sweeeeet ice tea
I like your description of it up there^^^^^^^^^
That's the best kind

Does Arizona count or are you taking real deep South sweet tea? I'm so addicted to Arizona's green tea with honey and ginseng I actually have a
widespread reputation for it. People get surprised when I don't have a can

.

Iced tea is the only thing I drink besides water. It's infinitely better than soda or juice.

originally posted by: tavi45
Does Arizona count or are you taking real deep South sweet tea? I'm so addicted to Arizona's green tea with honey and ginseng I actually have a
widespread reputation for it. People get surprised when I don't have a can

.

Iced tea is the only thing I drink besides water. It's infinitely better than soda or juice.

I've had Arizona before, it's not bad
Also Lipton puts out an 'extra sweet' version but not available everywhere

The South does tend to make their tea 'ultra sweet' as in electrify your teeth sweet, if you catch my meaning!!
Oh yeah, about 5# of sugar to a pitcher of water should do it!!

Explains the whole hyper thing. lol I cannot imagine anyone drinking tea of any kind without sugar, that said, we midwesterners are not so inclined
toward the kind of sweetness you describe. I fear diabetic comas your description is so errrm detailed. lol

Oh Yeah can't beat it Heff. I made a gallon pitcher last night. It's ice cold in the fridge now. For many years I drank Vernors ginger ale. Then I
decided I needed to lose some weight. I wanted to get away from the high fructose corn syrup. Started drinking the sweet tea that my southern family
used to drink. Now I've lost nearly 50 pounds. No other changes to my diet or exercise. It took around 3 years.

I live in the Deep South. Any further south and my address would be the Gulf of Mexico and I can't agree with you more. I have refined my sweet tea
by using tea's other than the pedestrian "Lipton". (No knocks on Lipton)
I started with Earl Grey which has a nice bite to it and have gone on to try anything that has an interesting name to it. Ya can't go wrong with tea
no matter what kind it may be.

Lived in the ATL metro for six years. Transplant from the plains. We always made a gallon or two of sun tea every day of the summer. I couldn't
stand sugar in my tea ever. But im not a "sweet tooth"...

I'm not going to judge others for liking sweet tea and I can understand your cravings for it especially in the South.

I remember when my ex-wife was diagnosed with gestational diabetes when carrying our first child. We had awesome insurance so they required her to
take a class on nutrition, how to test, and how to keep glucose levels low so she didn't need insulin. Informative. There were about six other
couples there as well. We're in the South, right, so when the class ends the largest of the mothers walks out of the room saying "Ah dont care what
no docter say-yahs, Ah'm drankin' ma sweet tea!" Whoa.
I have settled in a Nice quiet spot in the northeast since. I no longer have to say "unsweetened" when I order tea.

I grew up in Florida, but never could hack sweet tea. Best I could manage was adding a bit of sugar or honey to my own unsweetened iced tea, and even
then, I still gagged.

I'm one of those people who loves chai tea, but can't stand it with sugar & milk/cream. Has to be naked for me, adding things seems to ruin the flavor
for me. And don't you dare think about putting creamer and/or sugar in my coffee, fisticuffs are in order

edit on 10/20/2014 by Nyiah
because: Argh, I see it's a constant typo kind of day already

You mention real Southern Iced Tea but fail to mention the fact that TRUE SOUTHERN TEA is made with the sun.

Its ok, its not common knowledge in todays times, everything else you mentioned is spot on %100.

Brings back memories of the massive tea jug from my childhood always on the porch during the summers of last millennium. I don't have that jug
anymore so I cannot make it with the sun but I do like to add a bit of whiskey to the mix every once in awhile.

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